LIS 



PAPERS ON EDUCATION. First Series, 9. 



COMMON-SCHOOL TEACHING 



KIDDLE 



^'k'"^ 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2010 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/commonschoolteacOOI<idd 



COMMON-SCHOOL TEACHING 

-A LECTURE - 

DELIVEBED BEFOEE THE TeACHEKS' ASSOCIATION OF THE CiTY OF BeOOKLYN, 

September 28., 1877. 



HENRY KIDDLE, 

SUPEEINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, New YoRK CiTY. 



K 



^A 



1/ 




NEW YORK: 
E. STEIGEH, 

18tt. 










Published by Request of the Teachers' Association of the City of Brooklyn. 



Copyright, 1877, by Henry Kiddle. 



Press of 
E. Steiger, N. Y. 



COMMON-SCHOOL TBACHINa. 

I design to illustrate, in the remarks which I am about 
to offer this afternoon, to what an extent, and for what rea- 
sons, the profession in which you are engaged deserves your 
most careful and earnest study. I have chosen as my theme 
Common-School Teaching^ because it is in that field that 
most of you are engaged, and because the teaching of great 
and heterogeneous masses of children in common schools re- 
quires a peculiarly careful application of just principles in 
order to make it truly effective. Of course, what I have to 
say has reference to primary, as distinguished from second- 
ary and superior, instruction. It is true, the line of demar- 
cation between these grades is by no means fixed at pres- 
ent; and there is still much discussion in regard to what 
should be embraced within the scope of common-school in- 
struction; hence, as I do not intend at this time to touch 
on this discussion, I shall speak of teaching, meaning com- 
mon-school teaching, or elementary instruction, leaving its 
precise limits still undefined. 

What we, as educators, need is to impress upon the 
community the fact that teachers are members of a separate 
profession; for there is scarcely any error so prolific of evil, 
and which so utterly ignores the results of modern thought 
and discovery, as that of believing education, and, of course, 
teaching, to require no special study in order that it may be 
understood and practiced. This error, notwithstanding all 
that has been said and written on the theory and science of 
education, is, however, often committed, and not simply as 
one of speculation, but of practice. Some of our systems 



^ 2 — 

of common-school education seem based upon the idea that 
no such science exists, and that to teach is an intuitive art, 
the teacher, like the poet, being ^'born not made;" and, 
therefore, that those who have acquired a suflacient familiar- 
ity with the ordinary school branches, if they possess the 
requisite natural abihty, can teach to perfection ; while, if 
they have not that ability, no kind of instruction, nor any 
amount of study, can make them teachers. — The result of 
this erroneous impression is, that often no adequate means 
are provided for the training of those who are intrusted 
with the most responsible, difficult, and trying of all the 
duties that devolve upon mankind, — the education of the 
young.* — ^Who shall attempt to estimate the baneful conse- 
quences of this misconception, when it permeates a vast 
system which is designed to provide instruction for thou- 
sands of youthful minds ? 

It is consolatory, however, to know that it is an error 
which, in the main, belongs to the past. Education is now 
very generally considered a special department of human 
knowledge. The old ideas have been thoroughly exploded. 
The progress of discovery has invaded this field also of 
thought and labor. Commencing with the reforms intro- 
duced into scientific investigation by the system of Bacon, 
it has continued down to the present time, every year add- 
ing to the extent of educational science, enlarging its field, 
but at the same time, defining more accurately its prin- 
ciples, and settling its limits. 

As the result of all this, we find education no longer a 
thing of mere verbal repetition, but a means of educing— 
bringing out the faculties of the mind, by agencies founded 
upon a careful study of those faculties, and the instrumen- 
talities by which they may be developed. The celebrated 
Locke emphatically expressed the need, in his day, of a 



* The greatest and most important difficulty of human science is the 
CTirture and education, of children, — Montaigne. 



change from the word teaching, then universal, to the teach- 
ing of things. In the words of Hallam, '' he did not think 
that to pour the wordy bool<:-learning of pedants into the 
memory is the true discipline of childliood, " * — Pestalozzi 
only more closely applied this principle, basing all teaching 
upon the actual mental experience — the acquired concep- 
tions, of his pupils; teaching principles instead of rules, and 
appealing to the understanding instead of the mere memory ! 
This necessity of a change from the mechanical to the ra- 
tional method of instruction has been, since his time, pretty 
fully recognized ; and this recognition has been followed by 
the general establishment of teachers' seminaries. 

The teacher personally has felt the benefit of this change. 
His character and social position have been elevated. No 
longer made the butt of ridicule and the object of caricature, 
he is regarded by enlightened persons as the member of an 
honorable and useful profession — a profession requiring at 
once special training and peculiar talent. The horn-J)oo7c 
and the feruki have ceased to be considered his only 
necessary implements, both mental and physical; nor is the 
bankrupt tradesman, or the penniless and spendthrift gentle- 
man, deemed fit to descend to his lowly and degrading occu- 
pation. He is supposed to possess at least some information 
and skill to which, those who are not teachers, can have no 
necessary claim. 



* "^Vhoever asked his pupil what he thought of grammar and rhet- 
oric, or of such and such a sentence of Cicero ? Our pedagogues stick 
them full-feathered in our memories, and there establish them like 
oracles, of which the very letters and syllables are the substance of the 
thing. To know by rote is no knowledge ; 'tis no more than only to re- 
tain what one has intrusted to his memory. That which a man rightly 
knows and understands, ho is the free disposer of at his own full liberty, 
without any regard to the author from whom he had it, or fumbling over 
the leaves of his book. A mere bookish learning is a poor stock to go 
upon ; though it may serve for some kind of ornament, there is yet no 
foundation for any superstruction to be built upon it." — Montaigne's 
on Education, 



_ 4 — 

Not that this sentiment is entirely of recent origin. Its 
theoretical advancement may claim considerable antiquity. 
Individual minds, elevated above their fellows by the inspi- 
ration of genius^ and gifted with the forecast which it im- 
parts, centuries ago, discerned and proclaimed that men are 
good or bad, noble or mean, wise or foolish, principally 
through early education ; and that, therefore, to the 
teacher, properly invested with influence and authority, 
and supported by an enlightened public opinion, must we 
look for the thorough and permanent improvement of the 
human race. Thus we find old Martin Luther quaintly re- 
markiDg in one of his sermons: ^'If I could relinquish the 
office of preacher, there is no office which I would more will- 
ingly have than that of school-master. For I know that 
this work, next to the office of the preacher, is the most 
profitable, the greatest, and the best. Besides, I know not 
even which is the best; for it is hard to make old dogs tame, 
and old rogues upright, at which task the preacher's office 
labors, and often labors in vain. But young trees be more 
easily trained and bent, howbeit some should break in the 
effort. Beloved ! count it one of the highest virtues upon 
earth, to educate faithfully the children of others, which so 
few, and scarcely any, do by their own." This appears to be 
one of those scintillations of great minds, which have usually 
been the precursors of wide-spread popular improvements. 

Notwithstanding the science of education has been thus 
improved and exalted, and popular sentiment has become 
enlightened to so great an extent in regard to the in- 
fluence of the teacher and the magnitude of his office, it is 
still, without doubt, very much beclouded in its view of what 
teaching really is, and what are the essential conditions for 
the attainment of its proper objects. Teachers themselves 
too often fail to appreciate the objects and nature of the 
task which they have undertaken. Absorbed in the me- 
chanical routine of their office, they not unfrequently lose 
sight of the end in their exclusive devotion to the means, 



teaching the thing — geography, grammar, or what not— 
and forgetting to instruct the person; eager to pour in 
knowledge, but neglecting to bring out mind. 

As an instance, how little of all that is presented to the 
juvenile mind, during the earliest stages of its development, is 
at all adapted to the purpose ! How often are children al- 
lowed to sit, day after day, in the school-room, doing nothing 
but gathering the rust of inactivity and dullness upon minds 
that nature left fresh and active ! And for what ? Perhaps 
simply that the names of twentj^-six arbitrary signs may bo 
fixed in the memory. To teach the alphabet is still con- 
ceived by some to be the exclusive and ultimate aim of the 
first operations in educational training; and, accordingly, 
the process is a mere repetition of meaningless sounds, or 
word lessons interspersed with no food for the young intel- 
lect, no material to awaken thought, no object lessons to ex- 
cite attention and cultivate observation, no pleasing inter- 
rogations and simple narratives to call up previously ac- 
quired ideas, and excite mental activity; but, instead of all 
this, every possible agency that can induce an ineffaceable 
sluggishness and torpor, that must inevitably preclude all 
proper mental discipline in the future. 

There is a want of perspicacity — of good sense, or com- 
mon sense, I may say, which often induces parents and 
teachers to look at the immediate rather than the ultimate 
effects of teaching and discipline. If a child, after having 
been under the care of the teacher some months or years, is 
able to repeat a certain number of sentences or verses, to 
recite ''My name isNorval!" etc., or can answer readily, 
and without the least effort of thought, questions in geog- 
raphy, grammar, or what not, there are ten chances to one, 
that the parent, and too often the teacher himself, is en- 
tirely satisfied, if not astonished, at the result, and, over- 
come with admiration, scarcely pauses to think, even for an 
instant, what the effect of all this is to be upon the future 
condition of the pupil's mind and character. —It would be a 



._ 6 — 

most interesting task to trace all the ramifications of this 
wide-spread error, intertwining itself insidiously among all 
the operations and enterprises of the teacher, blinding par- 
ents as to the proper effects of teaching upon their children, 
and throwing so thick a veil over the apprehension of the 
people at large, that the subject of education, in all its re- 
lations, is dwarfed and distorted. In primary education, 
as before intimated, this sadly false impression is peculiarly 
disastrous. Does the parent expect to perceive his child's 
mind become more active, more inquisitive, more widely 
awake to the presence of novel objects of attention, more 
inclined to compare past with present impressions, by a con- 
stant attendance at the school? Does even the teacher, in 
most instances, anticipate such results, or aim at them? 
Far from it. The little scholar, perchance, begins to lose 
the vigor and freshness of health. He becomes wan, sickly, 
inelastic both in body and mind. He, however, pores over 
his book or map ; he goes through with the mechanical rou- 
tine of the school exercises ; he has learned to repeat long 
lists of hard geographical names, and to find them on the 
map, even on one of outlines only; he can set down any 
number of millions, billions, etc. ; he has also acquired the 
ditficult accomplishment of being able to sit motionless as a 
statue, not even a stolen, wandering, truant glance trans- 
gressing the decorous requirements of consummate disci- 
pline, and marring its sublime results. But, per contra, 
what is the return for this loss of health, and this mortifica- 
tion of every natural impulse and desire proper to childhood ? 
Instead of activity, torpidity of intellect; instead of a watch- 
ful curiosity, a vacant mind, destitute alike of the power 
of observation and attention; instead of ideas, ''words, 
words, words." Alas! that any, having the charge of 
the education of children, should not be convinced that 
no quantity or quality of book knowledge can compensate 
for the loss of a rosy face, a buoyant frame, and a mind 
thirsting for real knowledge ! 



It is in dealing with children of a tender age, that the 
most fatal consequences ensue from the error here referred 
to« The mind, and, indeed, the whole nature of the pupil, 
is so plastic that impressions and tendencies imparted are 
life-long and inefiaceable. It is then that genial culture is 
most practicable. The means for it are boundless and in- 
exhaustible; while, left to itself, the mind necessarily de- 
teriorates, and runs to waste. It is for this reason that 
primary instruction requires, beyond every other, the ex- 
ercise of skill — requires a profound knowledge of mind, as 
the subject upon which it is to be exercised, as well as of 
the various branches of knowledge to be employed as agen- 
cies in applying it. 

What then is it truly to teach ? Byron's short phrase, 
"to aid the mind's development," contains perhaps as terse 
and accurate a definition as can be given. According to 
it, the mind is not to be deemed a "passive recipient," but 
an active principle,* constantly growing, expanding, and 
tending to that condition of fixedness, so to speak, which 
we figuratively denominate maturity. The relation of the 
teacher, therefore, to this growing, expanding mind is not 
that of the potter molding the fictile clay into any desired 
shape, but that of the scientific floriculturist, guiding, and 
assisting by the application of all the subtle principles of 
vegetable physiology at his command, the growth and de- 
velopment of the living plant. It is only by taking this view 
of the teacher's ofiice, that wo can correctly estimate what 
may be accomplished through his efforts, when they are put 
forth with the highest degree of skill, and with all the va- 
rious resources which a thorough knowledge of his art places 
at his command. Let this be fully appreciated. Let the 
people umderstand, let teachers especially keep constantly 
in mind, that the true object of teaching is to send forth in- 



* The primaiy principle of education is the determination of the pupil 
to self -activity — the doing nothing for him which he is able to do for him- 
self. — SiB Wm. Hamilton. 



telligent, ivell trained^ noble-minded men and women ; to 
impress correct habits of thought and action, upright mo- 
tives of conduct ; and to correct, as far as possible, what- 
ever is inconsistent with these; and then the vocation of the 
teacher will stand second to none in dignity and importance, 
and teaching will take its place as a science and a profession 
among the very highest to which men or women can devote 
themselves. 

There are not wanting those who will interpose the ob- 
jection here that such results cannot be expected from an 
ordinary course of school instruction — certainly not from a 
common-school education. Says one, ^'I want my son to 
have a practical education. Let the three r's be well at- 
tended to. See that he be thoroughly taught reading^ 
writing, and arithmetic, and all the rest will take care of 
itself." — It is strange to what an extent some persons are 
carried away and deluded by mere words. A practical 
education forsooth I As if it were not practical and practi- 
cable, without neglecting the useful branches of education, 
nay, by teaching them in the best manner,* so to discipline 
the intellect as to make its possessor a correct and logical 
thinker and an acute observer; so to train the moral nature 
as to infuse sound principles, virtuous habits, and noble im- 
pulses; and generally, so to build up the whole character, 

* "Eeading, writing, and some acquaintance with the relations of 
numbers, are the main instruments by which all further acquisitions are 
wrought out. These, therefore, have been and will continue to be the 
main subjects of early school instruction. And these are the tokens by 
which the correctness or efficiency of any system of primary or common- 
school education will be tested and judged by the parent and by the 
public; and rightly too. The error of the old system was not only in 
neglecting entirely the culture of the perceptive faculties, but in so teach- 
ing the elementary branches as absolutely to blunt them. The remedy 
is not in substituting other subjects of instruction, but in educating the 
senses, and through the senses, the intelligence and will, and then ap- 
plying and subordinating these habits of accurate observation and this 
cultivated activity and power, to a proper method of acquiring the ele- 
mentary studies and their out-growing attainments. "—Dr. Wllbub. 



— 9 — 

that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, education would 
leave its subject an upright and useful citizen, an active, 
generous, and enlightened man. This is no speculative ex- 
travagance. Such is the uniform testimony of skillful and 
intelligent educators in regard to the influence of judi- 
cious training; and this alone is to be regarded as the true 
practical in education. 

"Earth's universal frame shall feel the effects; 

Even till the smallest habitable rock 

Beaten by lonely billows, hear the songs 

Of humanized society; and bloom 

With civil arts, that send their fragrance forth, 

A grateful tribute to all-ruling Heaven. 

From culture, unexclusively bestowed, 

Expect these mighty issues; from the pains 

And faithful care of unambitious schools 

Instructing simple childhood's ready ear, 

Thence look for these magnificent results. " 

These lines do not express the mere vision of a poet's 
brain. The sober philosopher in his view of what education 
should do, concurs with the prophetic strain of the bard: 
' ' I call that education which embraces the culture of the 
whole man, with all his faculties— subjecting his senses, his 
understanding, and his passions, to reason, to conscience, 
and to the evangelical laws of the Christian revelation." — 
*'To educate," says Dugald Stewart, ^'is to cultivate the 
various principles of our nature both speculative and active, 
in such a manner as to bring them to the greatest perfection 
of which they are susceptible." This is the aim which, 
whether circumstances permit us to reach it or not, we 
should still constantly keep in view. For even if we admit 
that, to its fullest extent, it is unattainable ; and that we 
cannot count upon bringing minds, in general, 'Ho the 
greatest perfection of which they are susceptible," all will 
acknowledge that we should endeavor to do so — that cult- 
ure is the proper end of educational training, not merely 
pouring in facts — "filling the head with learned lumber, 



— 10 — 

and taking out the brains to make room for it." — He who 
strives to crowd the memory with facts, regardless of any 
effect such acquisitions may have either upon the intellectual 
or moral character, ignoring entirely the fact that the mind, 
in its largest sense, is an active principle, rapidly maturing 
in some way, and only needing guidance to mature in the 
right way, does not deserve the name of teacher."^ Yet, 
how many teachers there are who possess no other qualifica- 
tion than a knowledge (and that often superficial) of the 
ordinary school branches to be taught! But that the 
teacher should possess a familiar acquaintance with the 
powers and capabilities of the intellect which he is to train, 
is self-evident. Mind being the subject upon which his oper- 
ations are to be performed, to work without a thorough 
knowledge of its nature, must necessarily prove a blind and 
senseless groping from which only occasional and casual 
benefit can result, with the almost certainty of serious in- 
jury, f It would be considered the wildest and most prepos- 
terous charlatanry to attempt the treatment of the body 
without a knowledge of anatomy and physiology, or to guide 
the development of the physical system without a previous 



* " 'Tis tho custom of school -masters to be eternally thundering into 
their pupils' ears, as if they were pouring into a funnel, whilst the business 
of these is only to repeat what the others have said before. Now, I 
would have a tutor to correct this error: and that, at the very first outset, 
he should, according to the capacity he has to deal with, put it to the 
test, permitting his pupil himself to taste and relish things, and of him- 
self to choose and discern them, sometimes opening the way to him, and 
sometimes making him break the ice himself ; that is, I would not have 
him alone to invent and speak, but that he should also hear his pupil 
speak in turn. Socrates, and, since him, Arcesilaus, made first their 
scholars speak, and then spoke to them. Ohesi plerumque Us qui discere 

VOluni AUCTOBITAS EOKUM QIH DOCENT. " MONTAIGNE. 

t ' ' Intellectual philosophy is necessary for the teacher. His busi- 
ness is with mind. He, of all men, should know something of its laws 
and its nature. He can know something, indeed, by observation and 
introspection ; but he should also learn by careful study. His own im- 
provement demands it, and his usefulness depends upon it." — D. P. Page. 



— 11 — 

study of dietetics and the various laws of health; and yet to 
undertake this is manifestly no more absurd than to attempt 
to train the mind, assist in its development and cultivation, 
and cure its defects, without a thorough acquaintance with 
mental science and the laws of mental development. As 
every discovery in the animal economy has led to improved 
methods of physical and muscular training, and to a more suc- 
cessful regimen in the cure of bodily disease, so, it must be 
evident, a profound knowledge of the laws of mind, and espe- 
cially of those which control its growth and development, 
could not fail to introduce similar improvements in the sci- 
ence of education, and afford such practical rules and proc- 
esses as would make teaching far more efficient, than at 
present, in the attainment of its proper objects. —The his- 
tory of scientific agriculture beautifully illustrates this im- 
portant truth; for it is familiar to all how greatly success in 
this department of labor has been enhanced by studying the 
character of different soils, ascertaining their component 
elements, and their chemical affinities with the vegetable 
productions designed to be cultivated. We need a Liebig, 
in educational as well as chemical science, to apply its theo- 
retical principles to practical art, and demonstrate the vast 
advantage of scientific, over merely experimental, often hap- 
hazard, processes. For the teacher who is to till the 
soil of the mind, must, like the agriculturist, atten- 
tively investigate its nature, and adapt his operations to 
its character and capabilities, or his vocation will never rise 
above a mere mechanical employment, in which only inferior 
minds will be content to be engaged.— It is true that many 
efficiently discharge the duties of teachers who have never 
made these scientific principles a subject of regular study or 
research. There are a few minds that discern mtuitively 
more than others can discover by the most laborious investi- 
gation; and thus they often employ the most subtle and ab- 
struse principles of science witiiout being the least conscious 
of it These are, however, exceptional cases; and as genius 



— 12 — 

is superior to all rules of art, constitute no criterion of what 
is necessary for ordinary minds. There are others that em- 
ploy arbitrarily certain rules and processes of teaching, 
which they have acquired by imitation, or have borrowed 
from the experience and intelligence of others, without un- 
derstanding at all the principles underlying them. These, 
there is no doubt, constitute a very considerable portion of 
those engaged in teaching. But how greatly would their re- 
sources and usefulness be increased by a familiarity with 
the scientific principles of their art! With how much more 
correctness, as well as expertness, would they be enabled 
to adapt it to the innumerable diversities of mind, disposi- 
tion, and circumstances which they are obliged to meet ! 
How much more variety and novelty would they be able to 
command in order to sustain the flagging interest, and ex- 
cite to eager attention, without which no teaching can be 
made available. The great difference between the mere 
artisan and the scientific operator is, that the former has 
only one set of rules, adapted to such cases as generally 
arise; and, accordingly, when any peculiar exigency occurs, 
requiring a deviation from them, he is entirely at a loss; 
while the latter is always prepa^red. Whatever demand 
may arise, however unexpected the conjuncture of circum- 
stances, he is able to draw from the general principles with 
which his mind is stored, a process for removing the diffi- 
culty. It is so in every department of human effort. A 
thousand exigencies are liable to arise which cannot be 
foreseen, and which can only be met by the application of 
principles. Mere rules and processes of art are then utterly 
useless. '' Valuable knowledge," says Dr. Campbell, '^al- 
ways leads to some practical skill, and is perfected in it. 
On the dther hand, the practical skill loses much of its 
beauty and extensive utility which does not originate in 
knowledge. There is, by consequence, a natural relation 
between the sciences and the arts, like that which subsists 
between the parent and the offspring." On the same prin- 



— 13 — 

ciple, Lord Bacon says, '^ Expert men can execute and 
judge of particulars, one by one ; but the general councils, 
the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those 
that are learned." 

These considerations manifestly establish the truth that 
teaching is founded upon some scientific principles which the 
truly efficient teacher must, of necessity, fully understand. 
What these scientific principles are, and from what they 
are derived, will be now briefly considered. It must be ap- 
parent that the science of teaching must be founded, in 
some way, upon mental philosophy; but it is nevertheless 
widely distinguished from mental philosophy. This treats 
of what the mind does when in a condition of maturity, 
that, of the manner in which it attains that condition, — of 
the laws of its growth and development. The relation be- 
tween the two is similar to that which exists between bot- 
any or vegetable physiology and scientific farming or hor- 
ticulture. Before we can aid in the growth and develop- 
ment of a plant — ' ' bring it to the greatest perfection of 
which it is susceptible," we must understand its structure, 
organization, and peculiar character, as well as the agencies 
by which its growth is to be stimulated or repressed, so 
that it may attain the highest condition of fruitfulness or 
beauty. — In the case of the mind, possessing, as it does, so 
many and such diverse powers, and performing so many va- 
rious operations, there are peculiar points of inquiry, which, 
after mental philosophy has been thoroughly studied, naturally 
present themselves, and the complete solution of which consti- 
tutes, in a great degree, the science of intellectual training. 

In ivhat order do the mental faculties naturally tend 
to be developed .?*— This, the first inquiry, is very iuiportant, 
and is fundamental. There is no doubt that, in teaching, 
as in every thing else, nature should be our constant guide ; 
and that, instead of vainly attempting to overrule her, and 
substitute our senseless wishes and designs for her unalter- 
able and imperative enactments, we should anxiously ex- 



— 14 — 

plore and implicitly obey them. To do otherwise ia to labor 
for a merely temporary or an impossible result. 

"Naturam expeUes furca, tamen usque recurret." 

Observation can scarcely fail to convince the most heed- 
less that she has legislated with respect to this point, and 
that a certain and uniform order is observed in the develop- 
ment both of the intellectual powers and moral propensities 
of human beings. Education must take cognizance of this, 
and shape her course accordingly, or failure will inevitably 
result. Says Prof. Henry, ^'The laws which govern the 
growth and operations of the human mind are as definite, 
and as general in their application, as those which apply to 
the material universe ; and it is evident that a true system 
of education must be based upon a knowledge and applica- 
tion of these laws The several faculties of the human 

mind are not simultaneously developed ; and in educating an 
individual, we ought to follow the order of nature, and to adapt 
the instruction to the age and mental stature of the pupil." 

Watch the dawn of active intelligence in the mind of the 
infant! How rapidly and beautifully does it pass from 
mere sensation to observation, and from observation to the 
recognition of persons and objects formerly beheld, or of 
sounds formerly heard! In this manner, conception is 
brought into play, the mind receives ideas, and the memory 
retains and recalls them by that wonderful principle of 
association, which Rogers has so beautifully described: 

Lull' d in the countless chambers of the brain, 
Our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain. 
Awake but one, and lo, what myriads rise ! 
Each stamps its image as the other flies. — 

In this way, as the power of conception * is developed, 
by the unaided operation of natural agencies, articulation 

* By conception is here meant the power of recalling ideas and making 
them the subject of thought or of any mental process in the absence of 
actual perception. Thus perception is receiving an impression in the 
mind from a present object of sensation ; conception, the revival of that 
impression when the object is absent. 



-^ 15 — 

commences; words are connected with conceptions; and talk- 
ing and thinking move on together. Take a child of five 
years of age, as it enters one of our elementary schools to 
be subjected to the manipulations of the teacher, and con- 
sider what acquisitions it has made in this way. The senses, 
actively awake to receive impressions, have brought it into 
communication with the multifarious objects of external nat- 
ure; the faculty of conception, in nearly uninterrupted play, 
during the hours of waking and even of sleeping,* has 
given it a corresponding number of ideas; it has acquired a 
vocabulary of about two thousand words, and quite a con- 
siderable facility and correctness in their combination and 
use. Indeed, when we reflect upon it, the acquisitions, un- 
aided and intuitive, of a child* of five years, are truly 
astonishing. There is no doubt that they far exceed 
those of any other corresponding period of subsequent 
life. It is thus that conception^ aided by the law of 
association, lajs the foundation of the whole intellect- 
ual character. Here is no senseless cramming of words ; 
for words are only acquired to represent actual ideas, 
and are used as fast as acquired. Under the guidance 
of a thoughtful and intelligent teacher— a teacher prop- 
erly conversant with the operations of mind and the laws 
of its development, this natural process would go on, guided 
to its proper objects. Instead of the mental treadmill, so 
often substituted for it, it would be sustained by that food 
for which nature always implants a craving — and this food 
is never mere formulas, verbiage, or a dull and monotonous 
repetition of meaningless sounds. 

* A voluble little girl, employing a vocabulary of one, two, or three 
thousand words, is never stopped by a jar of the machinery, connecting 
the word and the thought. Now, this perfect working of an apparatus 
so complicated, well consists with the belief that the sixteen or twenty 
hours of every day — sleeping or waking, during which the conceptive 
faculty is in undisturbed operation, are devoted, in the intention of nat- 
ure, to the latent process which assimilates ideas and words, in an indis- 
soluble manner. — Taylor's Home Education. 



— 16 — 

The modes of instruction, in primary schools particularly, 
should have careful reference to this natural procedure in 
the development of the mental faculties, and constantly keep 
in view the mental condition and progress of the child, 
gently urging on but never transcending it. The rational 
method (in contradistinction to the mere mechanical or rote 
method) is applicable to all the various branches ordinarily 
taught to young children in these schools. The reading 
lessons, for example, should be always adapted to the con- 
ceptions and general condition and progress of a child's 
mind. They should be made the medium of communicating 
or recalling ideas, and thus of stimulating or exercising the 
mental activity. Speaking or reading should be made to go 
on with thinking. To disjoin them in the early stages of 
instruction, is not only opposed to healthy mental progress, 
but lays the foundation of incurably vicious mental habits. 
What advantage can that mind derive from reading which 
has been habituated to pronounce the sounds suggested by 
the printed page without a single thought of the ideas 
which they are intended to convey ! Much of the reading 
matter afforded for the intellectual improvement of children, 
seems elaborately constructed to prevent it, or, at any rate, 
to sacrifice it to expertness and accuracy in mechanical 
reading and spelling. For instance, nothing can be more 
senseless than to employ such a jargon as the following for 
any purpose: 

' ' The cat is the dam of the kit* She can sit on the mat. She was 
by the hay to-day. A fat rat ran by. Can the cat eat a rat and a bat ? 
We eat no rat, nor bat.". . . . "Ask Ann, if she, or my son, has got the 
hen. Do not sob, my son, if the hen hop up on the top of an ash log. " 

That the intelligence of children should be developed by 
such jargon as this, is simply impossible; and, perhaps, the 
authors or inventors do not claim this for it. All they claim 
is, perhaps, that it is an efficient kind of machinery designed 
to familiarize the eye and the tongue with certain verbal 
fornis. Admit that it is. Must we sacrifice the mind itself 



— 11 -^ 

in educating it ? Must we deaden the intellect, quench the 
natural intelligence of a child, in order to make him a good 
reader or speller ? May not a good speller be an intoler- 
able dunce? Nay, must he not, of necessity, become one, 
if long confined to such exercises ? 

This nonsensical and, of course, unnatural process often 
results from supposing that spelling must be taught before 
reading; whereas, the simplest knowledge of mind would 
dictate the reverse; that, in all cases, spelling should be 
acquired by means of reading (and writing), and not read- 
ing by means of spelling. — To adopt the other mode is er- 
roneous, because by means of it the mind — the intelligence — 
of the child is not addressed. It calls up no images, elicits 
no ideas; in short, it gives the mind nothing to do. On the 
other hand, by pictorial illustrations, drawings on the black- 
board, the use of actual objects, and such appliances, a very 
short time is required to impress upon the memory of even 
a very dull child, the form and proper pronunciation of a 
considerable number of intelligible words ; and (what is 
more important) the power of attention is increased, and 
the mental activity sustained and exercised. 

In addition to the faculty of forming conceptions, there 
are others which are very early developed in the minds of 
young children, for which primary instruction should pro- 
vide proper employment. The scope of these remarks only 
permits a brief allusion to them. Such is the ability to rec- 
ognize analogies in objects which, on the whole, are very 
dissimilar; from this naturally follows a comparison of ob- 
jects and ideas, after which the mind passes, but slowly in 
most cases, to a recognition of abstract qualities. The idea 
of number is, for example, thus obtained, and is, probably, 
one of the first acquired. Then follows generalization, 
which leads directly to logical thought, or ratiocination. 
This, with judgment, and, perhaps, imagination, considered 
independently of conception, is developed slowly, and in its 
highest exercise belong to the last stage of the mind's 



— 18 — 

growth. — No attempt is here made at an exact enumeration 
or an elaborate description of the different faculties of the 
mind or their order of development, the object being merely 
to show that such an order does exist, and that it should be 
understood by the teacher in order that he may adapt his 
instructions to the mental status of his pupil, and thus make 
it efficient. No mention has been made of memory, because 
it is simply the power of retaining and recalling the results 
of the other faculties, and does not need any special culti- 
vation. There is nothing that is so injurious in education 
as exercising the mere memory; for example, by requiring 
children to repeat long lists of words or sentences, pieces 
for recitation, etc., which their minds are too little devel- 
oped to understand. Memory in such cases is abused; it 
retains and recalls the results of no intellection whatever, 
but only sounds, connected by merely arbitrary association. 
A second point of inquiry, and one which must serve as 
a guide in very many of the operations of teaching, is. What 
is the comparative rapidity with lohich the mental faculties 
tend to be developed ? For, as the faculties of the mind are 
not developed simultaneously, so neither are they developed 
with equal rapidity. Here, too, if we would consult the 
welfare of the child, we must take into careful consideration 
the provisions of nature; for there is no doubt that, in the 
wise and beneficent dispensations of the Creator, the devel- 
lopment of the mental faculties, both with respect to order 
and comparative rapidity has been made to depend upon, 
and accord with, the physical capabilities peculiar to each 
stage of growth. Some faculties, for instance, require a 
more vigorous exertion of the brain than others, and would, 
for that reason, be less adapted to the immature strength 
and constitution of childhood. To encourage the exercise 
of such faculties, and stimulate their growth with unnatural 
rapidity, would, of necessity, seriously retard the bodily 
development, and imperil the health, at the same time, in- 
troducing such disorder into the mental constitution, as 



— 19 — 

would impede, if not entirely prevent, all sound intellectual 
growth. That much injury is often done to children by a 
violation of this principle, will doubtless agree with the ex- 
perience of most, if not all, teachers. Between the mind 
and body there exist so powerful and constant an action 
and reaction, that, by an error of this kind, the vital ener- 
gies are often so impaired in childhood as to preclude all 
bodily and mental vigor forever afterward. Mental growth 
and culture must, in all cases, be subordinated to physical 
well-being. Mens sana in corxoore sano — a sound mind in 
a sound body, is truly to be prayed for, as the Roman poet 
remarks, as one of the greatest blessings of this life; we say 
one, for the two things are inseparable. ' ' The first thing 
in every eflSicient man," says Emerson, '4s a fine animal.''* 
We must be careful not to destroy the casket in our en- 
veavors to develop the beauty and brilliancy of the gem 
which it enshrines. All judicious and thoughtful educators 
must admit that in addressing the reasoning powers and the 
judgment, festina lente must be our motto. Minute anal- 
yses, ratiocination — consecutive trains of argumentative or 
demonstrative thought, task the mind and the brain more 
severely than any other intellectual processes. These facul- 
ties are, for this reason, developed by slow degrees. Yet, 
there is no error in teaching more common at present, than 
to attempt to bring into active and constant exercise the 
reasoning powers of children of a very early age. The 
pendulum of error oscillates from senseless, stupefying repe- 
tition and rote-learning on the one hand to continuous ana- 



* " It is not enough to fortify his soul, you are also to make his 
sinews strong; for the soul will be oppressed, if not assisted by the body; 
and would have too hard a task to discharge two offices alone. I know 
very well how much mine groans under the disadvantage of a body so 
tender and delicate that eternally leans and presses upon her ; and often 
in my reading perceive that our masters, in their writings, make ex- 
amples pass for magnanimity and fortitude of mind, which really have 
more to do with toughness of skin and hardness of bones. " — Montaigne. 



— 20 — 

lyzing and reasoning on the other. Every process or rule 
must be referred to its fundamental principle, however ab- 
struse, and this principle must be demonstrated with rigor- 
ous logical accuracy. A child must not be taught to write 
a number or to add a column of figures until the whole 
philosophy of the decimal notation has been elaborately 
enunciated and expounded. The 'Vhy and the wherefore" 
thus becomes a sort of Procrustean bed whereon the youth- 
ful mind is stretched and racked out of all healthful vitality. 
And this is very often admired as the acme of excellence in 
mental training, many teachers having no conception of 
any other object or kind of intellectual culture than to ex- 
ercise the reasoning faculty, and, generally, by hard prob- 
lems in arithmetical analysis, involving severe abstract de- 
monstration. There is nothing that so forcibly reminds us 
of the wise remarks of Horace, 

Dum stulti vitant vitia in contraria currimt. 

Isaac Taylor, in his truly admirable and philosophical 
work on Home Education, very justly remarks: '' The Ba- 
tionative Faculty — a complex habit, is, in the order of nat- 
ure, late developed, and those who would see it expand un- 
der the most favorable auspices, must direct their cares, 
not to the endeavor to anticipate its proper season, but 
rather to the means of carrying the mind on to a certain 
point of maturity, before any serious exertion of it is pro- 
moted. Nevertheless, from a very early period, and espe- 
cially after the time when the faculty of abstraction comes 
under culture, the teacher will keep in view what is to fol- 
low, and will watch for, and improve, any favorable oppor- 
tunities that may occur for giving a little initiative play to 
the reasoning power, so far as nature herself may appear 
to have developed it. To what an extent — an extent alto- 
gether incalculable, does the well-being of the individual, 
and of the community, depend upon the soundness, and the 
consistency, of the culture that may be bestowed upon the 
reasoning faculty, in early life!" 



— 21 — 

There is no doubt, that, in its elementary stages, teach- 
ing must be desultory rather than logical. Nature dictates 
this. The child is educated, at first, not by consecutive 
thought. The infant mind, like a narrow-necked bottle, re- 
ceives knowledge in drops, not in a continuous stream. 
Not that priDiary teaching need be unsystematic. The 
teacher must gather the materials for his work as the artist 
selects the variegated fragments which he is to arrange into 
a piece of elaborate mosaic. The connection between the 
separate parts has no existence save in the mind of the 
artist. His conception binds them together in a form of en- 
during symmetry and beauty. — Let the young mind be pre- 
sented with the food for which it craves. Not dry facts, 
wordy formula, scientific definitions, or tables of chronol- 
ogy, but something that addresses his ideality, gives play to 
conception — what we may call the flowers of knowledge, 
which may be scattered with no apparent system, although 
selected by the teacher with all the nice discrimination and 
intelligence of the most highly cultivated judgment.— Ignore 
the love of novelty in children, and the work of teaching be- 
comes as fruitless as to attempt to write on water. The 
machinery of the dull exercise, indeed, goes on the same, with 
the exception of an occasional yawn, impossible to be re- 
pressed; there is the same movement of the muscular system; 
^'voiceskeep time," eyes are fixed, heads upright, toes exten- 
ded at the right angle; but, alas ! the machinery of the mind 
has stopped; you keep up steam when the connection has 
given way. The locomotive goes on, but it leaves the train 
motionless miles behind. 

A- third point of inquiry is, What tendencies to distor- 
tion, and luhat kinds of distortion, are the various facul- 
ties of the mind subject to ? 

A complete system of education should embrace a con- 
sideration of the phenomena presented not only by healthy, 
but by morbid, growth. It should be able not only to form 
but to reform,— not only to develop with the assistance of 



— 22 - 

nature, but to correct when her general laws seem to have 
been superseded by untoward influences. — With respect to 
this point as to many others, education is purely an induct- 
ive science, and its principles and rules must be based up- 
on a long and careful observation of the manifestations of 
mind, presented during its several stages of growth. We 
do not, perhaps, possess a sufficient number of such facts to 
make an accurate generalizatiou, so as to form practical 
rules sufficient for our guidance in all cases. The subject 
has not received that special attention which is necessary 
for a full and reliable exposition of the theory of teaching in 
this regard. The materials for such an exposition must, in 
great part, be educed from the daily and hourly experience 
of the school-room; and by carefully gathering and collating 
the facts of this experience, and employing them for the ex- 
tension and improvement of the science of teaching, it is in 
the power of the humblest laborer in this great field, to con- 
tribute to the proper establishment of his profession — to the 
erection of that temple of science, in which, and in which 
alone, it is to be permanently enshrined and preserved. 

In that admirable allegory of Dr. Johnson in which he 
represents the various stages of human life under the beau- 
tiful and expressive figure of the ascent of a mountain, 
there is a very important principle illustrated which bears 
immediately upon this point: ''As Education led her troop 
up the mountain, ^nothing was more observable than that 
she was frequently giving them caution to beware of Hab- 
its; and was calling out to one or another, at every step, 
that a Habit was ensnaring them ; that they would be un- 
der the dominion of Habit before they perceived their 
danger; and that those whom a Habit should once sul)due, 
had little hope of regaining their liberty." There can be 
no doubt of the truth of the principle here so beautifully 
represented, and that the character, both moral and intel- 
lectual, is established, in a great degree, by the formation of 
habits. These, when depraved, constitute what has been 



— 23 — 

called above morbid or distorted growth, and, at an early 
age, may, although with more or less difficulty, be eradi- 
cated. In moral, this is doubtless much more difficult 
than in intellectual education ; since, in the former, the 
passions and appetites exert an opposing influence; while, 
in the latter, the only resistance to be overcome, in addition 
to that of habit itself, proceeds from indolence, or that kind 
of inertia by which the mind resists a change of condition. 
No part of the teacher's duty is more important than a con- 
stant vigilance so as to arrest the formation of deleterious 
habits, or to aid in forming such as are calculated to con- 
firm the healthy progress and development of his pupil's 
mind. The mind of a child may, with respect to the in- 
fluence of habit, be compared to a plastic material having 
a tendency to set, the greatest skill and tact of the artisan 
being required to prevent its setting unequally or unsymmet- 
rically, since when once lost, the plasticity can never be 
restored (if at all, only with exceeding difficulty). — As in 
such case, the principal object of the workman, must be 
to see that symmetry of form is secured before the estab- 
lishment of this fixed character, so the teacher must deem 
it the highest aim of his exertions to guard against the 
formation of such habits as would impair the symmetry or 
halance of the pupil's mind.* 

Let the teacher, therefore, constantly bear in mind, that 
habits are always more valuable than facts; that it is not 
the quantity of knowledge acquired that constitutes a crite- 
rion of the mind's improvement, but rather the modes of 
employing the mental faculties,— the haUts of thought, into 
which the mind has settled, in making its acquisitions or 
applying them. In view of this fact, it was judiciously re- 
marked by Erasmus, that, ''at first, it is no great matter 



* " If we study carefully tlie whole class of what are commonly sup- 
posed to be instinctive acts, in the human being, we shall find that the 
most of them are automatic rather than instinctive, or the result of 
habit based upon experience. " — Dr. Wilbub. 



~ 24 -^ 

hoio much you learn, but how well you learn." — In such 
useful arts as require a mixed exercise of the muscular sys- 
tem and of the mental faculties, such as penmanship, draw- 
ing, elocution, etc., this principle has a most important ap- 
plication. Elegant hand-writing, distinctness of articulation, 
correctness of intonations, ease and grace in deportment, 
may all be made to rest so firmly on thoroughly fixed habits 
as to become almost instinctive— a kind of '^second nat- 
ure." 

Subsidiary to the study of mental science, as one of the 
essentials of scientific teaching, and forming the basis for a 
distinct series of inquiries, is the consideration of language 
in its relations to mind, and not simply as a means of com- 
municating the results of thought and ratiocination, but as 
an instrument by the aid of which the processes themselves 
are carried on. — Language is the most important instru- 
ment of the teacher; it is the subtle agent by means of 
which he is enabled to explore the innermost recesses of his 
pupil's understanding, and fill it with '^all precious and 
pleasant riches." But it can become this only when em- 
ployed with a constant reference to its relations to the mind 
and its processes. In this point of view, a knowledge of 
language embraces much more than the ordinary machinery 
of grammar, required to secure verbal precision or rhe- 
torical elegance. Conjugation, declension, sentential anal- 
ysis, and verbal parsing have no part whatever in this con- 
sideration of language. These may all be thoroughly 
understood without the existence of a single glimmer of in- 
telligence as to how the mind employs language as an in- 
strument of thought, and how, therefore, the teacher should 
avail himself of its vast resources in ' ' aiding the mind's de- 
velopment." The teacher must possess a deep insight into 
those subtle and recondite principles by the operation of 
which this wonderful process is carried on. He must clearly 
perceive in what way it becomes not simply a vehicle, but 
also an instrument^ of thought. In the absence of this 



— 25 — 

particular knowledge, he cannot avoid being constantly in 
error— either by neglecting to make use of the various agen- 
cies which language affords for discipline and instruction, or 
by failing to adapt his language to the mental stature of his 
pupil, and thus darkening his understanding by a cloud of 
meaningless words. In fact, the common error of teaching 
mere words, arises not more from an ignorance of the nat- 
ure of mind than from a want of perceiving in what way 
language is related to it. Occupied as the teacher is in 
processes having for their object to influence and direct the 
functions of mind, it is obvious that nothing can more 
properly engage his study than this great instrumentality of 
mental intercommunication. A contemplation of the multi- 
farious combinations of ideas, the endless variation of 
thought and opinion, their complex relations and niceties 
of dependence and aflanity, cannot fail to inspire us with 
amazement and admiration at the vast resources of that in- 
tellectual implement by which their intricacy is completely 
overcome and every minute distinction, shadowy outline 
even, of thought,— all the light and shade, the perspective, 
and glow of the mental landscape, are brought out and pre- 
sented with almost photographic accuracy and complete- 
ness. Employing this wondrous instrument from the ear- 
liest period of existence, we lose by familiarity a just sense 
of its immeasurable importance, beauty, and exquisiteness; 
just as the sublime spectacle of the starry heavens, in some 
minds, scarcely ever excites a single emotion of pleasure or 
admiration. "Because," says Emerson, '^ every night come 
out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their 
admonishing smile; but if the stars should appear only one 
night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore, 
and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the 
city of God which had been shown." Thus, the familiar 
use of language carries the mind away from a contempla- 
tion of its vast and indispensable utility to us ; and our 
whole attention is given to the study of those, generally ar- 



— 26 — 

bitrary, rules which serve to secure a merely technical pre- 
cision. — These must, of course, be studied; and for practical 
purposes, are all that, in general, need be studied; but, 
the philosophy of language which belongs specially to the 
science of teaching, is rather analogous to that mixed sci- 
ence of language and mind — logic, in which, both as a sci- 
ence and an art, may be found very much that is indispen- 
sable to the teacher. Considering, as it does, how the mind 
passes from simple and concrete ideas to such as are com- 
pound or abstract; how it operates in framing an argument 
and in conducting a train of reasoning, and in what way it 
is dependent upon language in carrying on these processes, 
it must evidently furnish many of the principles by the 
application of which teaching may be made effective. 

Another and no less important subject for investigation 
in reference to scientific teaching is found in the relations 
of knoivledge to mental development. 

Knowledge is the food of the mind; since by the proper 
reception, digestion, and assimilation of it, the mind attains 
a maturity of growth and strength; and upon its quality and 
quantity must depend whether that mind shall become 
healthy and vigorous, or puny, sickly, and imbecile. It is 
of the first importance, therefore, to ascertain the effect 
produced by each distinct species of knowledge upon the 
mind— what faculty it exercises, and thus tends to develop. 
It is only in this way that we can properly arrange a course 
of study for any particular stage of education ; and it is 
self-evident that success in teaching must very greatly de- 
pend upon the branches of study selected, and the order in 
which tliey are presented to the mind. In general, this se- 
lection is almost uniformly made with reference to a very 
different principle; regard being had not to what will best 
develop, what will be of the greatest practical utility in im- 
parting to the mind itself the power of acquiring knowledge, 
and of employing it effectively, but what, whether it can be 
assimilated by the mind or not, seems best adapted to those 



pursuits which, it is presumed, will engage the child in after 
life. In this way, the great end of teaching becomes the im- 
parting of what is called useful information; and thus the 
memory is overburdened, while the understanding is starved. 
The question should never be, what will the mind need in 
twenty years from the present time, but what do its present 
capacities fit it for. As well give a child the food of a strong 
man, on the plea that when he becomes a man, he will need 
it, as to look exclusively at future wants, in supplying the 
intellectual food which is to afford present nourishment and 
vigor. 

'Not that the practical usefulness of the knowledge pre- 
sented to the youthful mind, should receive no considera- 
tion. It should, in all cases, be made the criterion of se- 
lection between subjects having equal etficacy as means of 
exercise and development, but should always be treated as 
of secondary, instead of primary and exclusive, importance. 
If the proper end has been kept in view, and in place of 
making mere acquisition and accomplishment the only ob- 
jects of regard, the attention of the student be directed to 
such subjects as will best develop the intellectual character, 
and bestow upon it the power of steady application and ac- 
curate thinking, tnere need be no anxiety but tha^,, as far 
as the power of education extends, he will be enabled to 
meet all the exigencies of his future life.* 

It is not, however, with reference to the order of studies 
alone that this branch of the science of teaching is impor- 

* There is no doubt that the consideration of practical usefulness 
in the knowledge presented should have increased weight as education 
advances; while in the first steps cultivation or development should be 
exclusively considered. In regard to this it is properly remarked by Dr. 
Wilbur, that in the early stages of education ' ' mental steps " are by no 
means "mental acquirements;" since in these as in the higher stages, "a 
thousand facts and ideas, having been used as steps in the development 
process, may be laid aside and forgotten. For what a miserable affair a 
man would be, if he could remember or did remember all the facts and 
ideas that have helped in his growth towards manliness!" 



— 28 — 

tant. Where this due order has been fully determined, and 
is peremptorily prescribed for the teacher's guidance, no 
less care is required to adapt the methods of teaching each 
branch to the particular faculty which it is designed to de- 
velop. Without this, a subject of study having an especial 
reference to the judgment or reason, might be made to de- 
pend exclusively on an exercise of mere memory. For in- 
stance, by an error of this kind, some teachers permit their 
pupils to commit to memory the language of geometrical 
demonstrations, instead of thinking out the connection of 
the several steps, and the dependence of the propositions 
upon the fundamental definitions. In fact, the great error 
committed by young and inexperienced teachers, consists in 
bringing into play the single faculty of memory, — and that 
kind of memory (certainly the lowest) which depends upon 
an arbitrary association produced by the habitual hearing 
or seeing of things in connection one with another. This 
law of association being one of the most obvious phenomena 
presented by the mind, is, of course, at once seized upon 
by the teacher who views education merely as a means of 
imparting a knowledge of the rudiments of written lan- 
guage, and of teaching by rote the elementary facts of sci- 
ence, because of its availability for such a purpose. When 
a teacher conceives that the sole end and aim of his efforts 
is to enable the pupil first, to recognize and call by name the 
arbitrary signs of the alphabet, then to combine them into 
syllables and words, and finally, to repeat them in connec- 
tion (often called reading), he is certainly to be excused 
for resorting to the shortest and most direct means of ac- 
complishing this design — an appeal to the law of arbitrary 
association. The injury done to the mind by this continued 
process, is incalculable; since, finally, ideas come to suggest 
each other according to no intrinsic or philosophical rela- 
tion, but only from their accidental connections, or such as 
constant repetition may have established. Thus, the inodus 
operandi of the mind becomes entirely vitiated, and it never 



— 29 — 

acquires any logical flow of thought. This is only one of 
many illustrations which might be given to show the impor- 
tance of the teacher's knowing the nature of the under- 
standing which he is to educate and the influence to be ex- 
erted upon it by the particular branch of knowledge which 
he is called upon to present for its acquisition. 

Every one musL perceive that if he aim to teach any 
subject whatever for its own sake rather than for the efiect 
which it is to have upon the mental character of his pupil, 
he will adopt very difierent methods, and work with quite a 
difierent spirit. In the one case, he will have no motive to 
do any thing beyond teaching the mere details of the sub- 
ject, —the rules and operations belonging to it, and, per- 
haps, their practical applications; in the other^ he will be 
impelled to study carefully the mental constitution and 
characteristics of the student, to ascertain in what respect 
culture is most needed, and to modify, as far as possible, 
his instructions, so as best to accomphsh this most desirable 
purpose. The former practice will also conduce to another 
serious error on the part of the teacher. He will be 
prompted to seek too hastily for immediate results, and to 
devise constantly opportunities for displaying them. He 
will, under this erroneous impression of the true success of 
his work, suppose that he has fulfilled his task, when he 
finds his pupil able to perform his part well in some special 
school display, and to acquit himself successfully in the 
usual routine of question and answer employed on such oc- 
casions—a kind of catechism to which he is accustomed by 
long previous repetition, and which is not calculated to 
bring the. mental faculties into exercise by varied interroga- 
tories, presenting the subject under many difierent aspects, 
and testing the ability of the mind to perceive its true rela- 
tions and grasp its multifarious combinations. He will, 
thus, fail to realize his great responsibiUty, as a public 
guardian appointed to feed and direct those streams which 
must, as they flow, fertilize or deluge his country. He will 



— 30 — 

forget the future in his efforts for the present, failing entire- 
ly to perceive that the legitimate processes of education 
operate like the genial agencies of nature, — qnietl}^, almost 
imperceptibly, yet, with unerring certainty, attaining their 
proper ends. The seed is laid in the bosom of the earth; 
and the dew, the rain, and the vivifying light and air, all 
operate with sublime and beautiful serenity and simplicity 
to produce the golden harvest. We have here no ''flourish 
of trumpets," no parade of partial results (though each 
step is exact and definite), no pompous show of mechanism; 
but, with calm and silent potency, the work is gradually but 
surely achieved. Tlie sculptor who would create from the 
shapeless block, a form matchless but with nature's handi- 
work, must content himself with chiseling away fragment 
after fragment, until the ideal in his imagination, is im- 
pressed upon the lifeless marble. The teacher, too, who 
would be indeed a teacher — slb. educator, must "learn to 
labor and to wait." 

Afcer the relations of knowledge to mental growth and 
culture have been fully investigated, and the proper order 
of studies has been settled, the next point of inquiry that 
arises is, by lohat methods may the several brandies of 
study be best presented to the mind. Tlais department of 
the science of teaching is wholly deductive, the principles 
underlying it being drawn from two sources : first, the gen- 
eral theory of intellectual education already considered; and 
second, the nature of the subject to be taught. Methods 
and rules of teaching may, indeed, be arbitrarily learned 
and mechanically applied to practice, without any investi- 
gation of those principles; but no intelligent and independ- 
ent operation can be carried on, unless they have been thor- 
oughly acquired. For example, if we would ascertain and 
prescribe the proper metiiods of teaching spelling, we must 
consider, in the first place, what faculty is principally con- 
cerned in acquiring and employing this branch of knowl- 
edge. Is it to be addressed to the memory, the reason, or 



— 31 — 

the imagination ? If to the memory, how far is it founded 
upon the remembrance of form or figure, and thus controlled 
by the eye; or to what extent is it dependent upon impres- 
sions made upon the ear; and, in either case, is it based up- 
on arbitrary association, or upon logical connection? It 
being an established principle in mental science, that what- 
ever is presented to the mind through the medium of sight, 
makes a deeper and more permanent impression than that 
which is simply addressed to the ear,* advantage should be 
taken of this fact, and merely oral exercises, where possible, 
give place to those in which the pupil himself is required 
either to write what he is to commit to memory, or con- 
stantly to view some striking delineation of it. When form 
and outline, or relative position and contiguity, are to be im- 
pressed upon the memory, this may, of course, always be 
done; and teachers very often fail from not availing them- 
selves of this law of the mind. 

In teaching spelling, this principle is often entirely 
ignored, inasmuch as oral exercises arc exclusively em- 
ployed, the teacher thus depending upon the impression 
made upon the ear, instead of calling in the aid of sight, 
and thus durably imprinting upon the memory the correct 
form of each word. In teaching geography without the use 
of maps there is a similar violation of the same principle. 
On the contrary, in the method of teaching this subject 
by requiring maps to be drawn from memory by the pupil, 
and a full description given of every part, we discern a 
beautiful recognition of its truth, and a forcible illustration 
of its utility and importance. 

There are many subordinate points of inquiry having 
reference to methods of teaching, which can only be an- 
swered by having recourse to the principles just mentioned; 
such as, in what manner the subjects to be taught should 
be divided, and in what order the divisions should be taken 



* Segnius irritant animos demissa per aures 

Quam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus.— Hobace, 



32 — 

up; whether the analytic or the synthetic method is best 
adapted to the purpose of instruction ; to what extent con- 
cert repetition, or teaching in the mass, can be effectively 
and usefully employed; how far rote-teaching may be used; 
what is the proper use of interrogation, and how far the 
pupil should be made to depend upon his own mental re- 
sources without the interference of questioning. This de- 
partment of the science of teaching is a very comprehensive 
and intricate one, and, therefore, requires much careful 
elaboration and profound study. Without a perfect famili- 
arity with the subjects themselves, it w^ould manifestly be 
absurd to expect any degree of success. It is true that 
scholars often learn despite the efforts of ignorant and blun- 
dering teachers, just as nature often steps in, and cures the 
patient after a long series of senseless prescriptions and 
quackery; and it is on* this account, probably, that persons, 
who are usually considered sane and rational, have been in- 
sane and irrational enough to argue against the need of ac- 
curate and extensive scholarship as a qualification for teach- 
ing; nay, sometimes to advocate ignorance as an efficient 
auxiliary, on the ground that the teacher, to keep up with 
his pupils, would be obliged to make constantly new acqui- 
sitions, and the very novelty would inspire him with earnest- 
ness and enthusiasm in' teaching them.* 



* The writer himself heard this argument seriously offered in an ad- 
dress to teachers, but, he is happy to say, by a member of another pro- 
fession. It is too often the case that teachers submit to be lectured by 
those who, devoting themselves to very different vocations, can scarcely 
be expected to understand that of the teacher, however humble it may 
be. This is a kind of quackery which no other profession considers 
consistent with proper self-respect. The opinion of a practical teacher 
of active mind and enlarged experience is, of course, to be preferred to the 
most elaborate thought-spinning of a thousand theorists, apt to soar, as 
they almost always are, into the regions of transcendentalism, and for- 
getful entirely of that wise saying of the immortal bard, "It is far easier 
to teach twenty what were good to be done than to be one of the twenty 
to follow the teaching," 



— 3,^ -" 

There are many other topics of inquiry which the sci- 
ence of education may be considered to comprehend, not 
only in regard to intellectual but to moral training. The 
latter, indeed, presents as wide a field of research as that 
already reviewed, and needs quite as careful an exploration. 
The connection between intellectual and moral culture, the 
basis of the latter as a separate branch of education, what 
specific laws it comprehends, on what principles of moral 
science it is founded, what practical rules flow from these, 
are inquiries that afford material for careful investigation 
and earnest study. To these may be added the considera- 
tion of discipline^ as a particular department of the teach- 
er's profession, requiring, as it does, a theoretical and prac- 
tical acquaintance with human nature, and more particular- 
ly with the various dispositions, passions, and peculiarities 
of childhood; demanding, too, so ready and expert an ap- 
plication of these principles as can result only from long ex- 
perience and careful practice, together with inexhaustible 
resources of intelligence, ingenuity, and address. — It is in 
this department of education that the greatest need exists 
of more judicious and effective processes. There is nothing 
in which greater abuses exist than in school discipline. 
It certainly is not a system by which children may be kept 
silent and motionless through the coercion of an iron rule — 
a reign of terror. It does not consist in repression but 
rather in iiripression. Restraint, forcible restraint — the 
law of violence, accomplishes nothing in moral discipline; 
yet very many teachers strive to effect nothing more, than 
the production, through this law, of order — outward de- 
corum in their schools; satisfying their consciences very 
often by citing the maxim — 

" Order is Heaven's first law," 

which has been often inscribed on the walls of the school- 
room as a justification for this exclusive aim. As if the 
poet meant to say that order^ in any such sense, is Heaveii's 



^ 34 - 

first law.^ When order and subordination, prompt obedi- 
ence to authority and submission to rule, have been per- 
fected, then moral training maybe commenced. — There is 
very much that passes for consummate ^ohool-teacMng^ 
which deserves only the name of ^ohool-keeping ; and, hence, 
sometimes arises that strange paradox, urged by some, 
that ignorance is not entirely inconsistent with the exercise 
of the art of teaching. — That kind of art which is required 
to train dogs or horses, may, indeed, exist in close com- 
munion with the profoundcst ignorance, and may be able to 
preside with admirable skih and address over the elaborate 
mechanism of school tactics; but to confound that with the 
art of teaching, or the art of true discipline, is like mis- 
taking the talent of a sign-painter for the genius of a Ra- 
phael or an Angelo. It is substituting the material for the 
intellectual, and blending, with undiscriminating stupidity, 
the dancing automata of a puppet-siiow, with the living 
and thinking creatures which are the handiwork of God. 

Intellectual and moral training are, in many respects, 
inseparable. In -the former, when legitimately carried on, 
there is an indirect moral influence, wliich is apt to be over- 
looked. Every thing that expands and develops the mind of 
a person, and trains it to habits of correct thought and ra- 
tiocination, must refine and elevate it, and, by enlightening 
his conscience and changing the character of his enjoyments, 
give a different direction to his passions and desires. It 
has been remarked that there is an intimate atfinit}" between 
the sentiment of virtue, and that love of the sublime and 
beautiful, whether in nature, art, or literature, which is the 
invariable concomitant of a cultivated mind. Indeed, vir- 
tue in the moral world, holds the same position as sym- 
metry, grace, and beauty in the natural ; and a perfectly 



* As this line is so often misquoted, it may, perhaps, be well to sug- 
gest that Pope meant not order in the sense of due arrangement, but 
order, in the sense of gradation of rank, series, one thing above another; 
not the opposite of confusion, but the opposite of equality of rank. 



— 35 — 

virtuous character affects us with a sensation analogous 
to that which we feel on beholding the master-piece of 
the statuary or the painter. If such be the case, he whose 
taste and imagination have been disciplined by a familiarity 
with beauty as exemplified in science and literature, must, 
in an important degree, acquire a love for moral harmony 
and beauty, and imbibe a corresponding repugnance to the 
loathsome form of vice. We have not only a 'priori evi- 
dence of this fact : it is irrefutably established by the rec- 
ords of crime in every civilized country, showing, as they 
do, that a very small proportion of those convicted of 
crime, belong to the educated classes, imperfect as most of 
the educational processes of education are, even as to the 
culture of the intellect. 

The relations of intellectual and moral education thus 
form a distinct and interesting topic connected with the 
general subject of educational science, which needs careful 
investigation and discussion. Its importance cannot fail to 
be appreciated by every teacher who labors in his profes- 
sion with the right spirit and the proper aim. It can, of 
course, receive no consideration when that aim is merely 
utilitarian and practical, in the common acceptation of those 
terms; but only when it conforms to that wise doctrine 
which Plato propounded more than two thousand years ago: 
'^That training which teaches how to make money, or aims 
at the development of mere physical strength, or the com- 
munication of skill in any mechanical business or common 
art, without intellectual culture and a sense of right, does 
not deserve the name of education." 

In view of this just principle, how groveling appear the 
aims of some of our most eminent soi-disant patrons of 
education. In the opinion of these, to fit a youth for the 
mechanic's bench, or the merchant's counting-house, is to 
accomplish all the ends of education. Let such who 
would thus degrade education, and refuse to their race, 
except a favored few, the benefits of intellectual and 



— 36 — 

moral culture, carefuUj^ con those just and beautiful lines of 

Shakespeare : 

' ' What is man 
If his chief good and market of his time 
Be but to sleep and feed ? — a beast, no more. 
Sure, He that made us with such large discourse, 
Looking before and after, gave us not 
That capability and godlike reason 
To rust in us unused, " 

Such are the principal points of inquiry and investiga- 
tion embraced in what may thus be properly called the sci- 
ence of education ; since science is only a series of classified 
facts, with an exposition of their relations and combinations, 
and the principles which a careful and accurate induction 
evolves from them. I make no attempt to exhibit the facts 
themselves, but only their origin and foundation, the method 
by which they are to be classified, and the great need of a 
generalization of them, so as to afibrd the principles which 
may suggest the most efi'ective rules of art. That special 
study and investigation are required to accomplish this, 
must be obvious to all, and that it is charlatanry to attempt 
to practice an art founded upon scientific principles so com- 
prehensive and profound, without an adequate preparation 
— a preparation which in every other field of labor is always 
deemed indispensable. This fact, in theory at least, has 
been pretty fully recognized in this country. There are but 
few of the states and large cities in which no provision has 
been made for the special instruction of teachers by the es- 
tablishment of normal schools. But the tendency in most 
of these institutions is to degenerate into mere academies, 
or high schools, because the course proper for normal in- 
struction has not been clearly and specifically marked out. 
What should be studied in order to obtain a knowledge of 
the science of education, and the art of education ? This 
question has not been definitely answered in the courses of 
study prescribed for these institutions, or for the normal 
de;^artments of colleges. 



~ 3T — 

There is much literature bearing upon this subject, of 
which a great deal is excellent; but, as jet, it cannot be 
said that any standard has been reached; and none will be, 
until practical educators take up the subject more earnestly, 
and work out the problem themselves. 

Associative effort on the part of teachers will accom- 
plish much. An association such as that to which you be- 
long, wisely organized and directed, must prove a great 
power for good. On the other side of the Atlantic, much 
has been done in this direction. The College of Preceptors, 
of London, is a magnificent example of what can be accom- 
plished by an association of educators. It examines teach- 
ers, and certifies their qualifications; and its diplomas are 
looked upon with the highest respect, and are growing in 
demand. It also publishes an influential journal.* The 
Educational Institute of Scotland, located at Edinburgh, is 
organized upon a similar basis. 



* "The College of Preceptors was established in the year 1846, and 
incorporated by Koyal Charter in the year 1849, ' for the purpose of 
promoting sound learning and of advancing the interests of education, 
especially among the Middle Classes, by affording facilities to the 
teacher for acquiring a knowledge of his profession, and by providing 
for the periodical session of a competent Board of Examiners, to ascertain 
and give certificates of the requirements and fitness for their office of 
persons engaged or desiring to be engaged in the education of youth,/ 
With this view, the Charter empowers the College to hold Examinations 
of Teachers and Schools^ and to grant Diplomas and Certificates to such 
persons as pass these Examinations satisfactorily. To effect these objects^ 
two plans of examination have been established: (1) That of Teachers, to 
ascertain their qualifications and fitness to take part in the work of in- 
struction; and (2) That of Pupils, to test their progress, and to afford at 
once to the Teacher and to the public a satisfactory criterion of the 

value of the instruction they receive At the present time more than 

150 schools, in various parts of the country, are in union with this 

College, and from time to time send up candidates for examination 

The course of lectures (professional) for the present year comprises 
(1) Mental and Moral Science with reference to Educatiori; (2) Practical 
Education and Methods of Teaching; (3) The History of Education." 
College Circular for 1877. 



— 88 — 

In many of the countries of Europe, great progress is 
making in the recognition of the science of education. At 
two of the four universities of Scotland — Edinburgh and 
St. Andrews, chairs of Education have been established; and 
this is also the case in the German universities. 

It is in the power of the teachers of this country to 
hasten the time when their profession will receive the com- 
plete recognition which its character and peculiar value de- 
mand ; for, without such recognition, teachers will never 
receive for their services the compensation which they de- 
serve, and will always be at the dictation of those who are 
as ignorant of the principles and practical rules which per- 
tain to the teacher's vocation, as they are positive and de- 
termined in the enforcement of their crude notions. It is 
entirely in the interest of your emancipation from such 
trammels that I have addressed you this afternoon, and I 
trust that what I have said may induce you not only to 
study more zealously the principles of your profession, but, 
in connection with this association, to labor earnestly to en- 
large the sphere of its influence and to elevate it in the 
esteem of the community. 



PATERS OJSr BDUCATIOm 

Under the above collective title a selection of small papers on educa- 
tional topics is being published, each number of which will, from its value 
and interest to teachers, and to reading and thinking persons in general, 
appear well worth publication and preservation in the separate, convenient, 
and attractive form adopted, the more so as these pamphlets could scarcely 
be placed in circulation through the regular book publishing channels, on 
account of the considerable trouble, expense of advertising, etc., always 
attendant upon such method of publication. The following are now issued: 

1. The Science and Art of Education. An introductory Lecture. — Principles 
of the Science of Education, A Paper. By Joseph Payne, Professor of the 
Science and Art of Education to the College of Preceptors, at London. 

(36 pages, with cover. Price 5 Cents, 10 copies 41 Cents.) 

2. Teaching Color. Extracts from Lectures. By Norman A. Calkins, First As- 
sistant Superintendent of Schools, New York City. 

(28 pages, with cover. Price 4 Cents, 10 copies 33 Cents.) 

3. The Kindergarten engrafted on the American Public- School System. 
Extracts from OfQcial Reports on the Public Kindergartens of St. Louis, Mo. 

(16 pages, with cover. Price 3 Cents, 10 copies 22 Cents.) 
'2. Waste of Labor in the Work of Education. An Address. By P. A. Chadbourne, 
President of Williams College, Williamstown, Mass. 

(20 pages, with cover. Price 3 Cents, 10 copies 26 Cents.) 
<5. History of the Philosophy of Pedagogics. By Charles W. Bennett, Professor 
of History and Logic in Syracuse University. 

(24 pages, with cover. Price 3 Cents, 10 copies 30 Cents.) 

<S. A feiv Words to Parents. [A plea for the simultaneous education of head and 

hand.] (8 pages. Price 1 Cent, 10 copies 8 Cents.) 

7. Moral Education in the Public Schools. A Paper. By William T. Harris, 

Superintendent of the Public Schools of St. Louis, Mo. 

(24 pages, with cover. Price 3 Cents, 10 copies 30 Cents.) 
6'. Pestalozzi; the Influence of his Principles and Practice on Elementary 
Education. A Lecture. By Joseph Payne, Professor of the Science and Art of 
Education to the College of Preceptors, at London. 

(24 pages, with cover. Price 3 Cents, 10 copies 30 Cents.) 

9. Common-School Teaching. A Lecture. By Henry Kiddle, Superintendent of 

Schools, New York City. (44 pages, with cover. Price 5 Cents, 10 copies 48 Cents.) 

10. The Claims of Frcebel's System to he called " The New Education.' ' A 
Paper. By Miss Emily ShirrefT, at London. 

(24 pages, with cover. Price 3 Cents, 10 copies 30 Cents.) 

11. The Political Economy of Higher and Technical Education. An Address, 
By Howard A. M. Henderson, Superintendent of Public Instruction of the State 
of Kentucky. (24 pages, with cover. Price 3 Cents, 10 copies 30 Cents.) 

12. Education and Crime. A Paper. By S. H. White, Principal of Peoria County 
Normal School, Illinois. (16 pages, with cover. Price 3 Cents, 10 copies 22 Cents.) 

Single copies, or quantities, of any one of the Papers on Education can be 
obtained from the publisher only, upon receipt of price, as quoted above— which 
barely covers the cost of production. 

To secure the regular receipt, prepaid by mail, of these Papers as they are 
issued, it is necessary to subscribe for them by runs, which are supplied at 
the rate of 50 Cents. Each run will contain pamphlets aggregating not less than 
600 pages. —The co-operation of friends of education in the development of thia 
undertaking will be welcome. 

E. Steiger, Publisher, New York. 



"Here, at last, is a book which no teacher can afford to do without." 

(American Jownal of Edtication.) 
"The book is one of immens^ practical value, and contains information which 
renders it almost indispensable to every class of book buyers and book readers." 

{Christian Standard.) 



THE 

CYCLOPEDIA OF EDUCATION: 

A 

DICTIOISrAIlY OF INFORMATION 

FOE THE USE OF 

TEACHERS, SCHOOL OFFICERS, PARENTS, AND OTHERS. 

EDITED BY 

HENRY KIDDLE 

AND 

ALEXANDER J. SCHEM, 



The Oyclopcedia of Education is issued in one large octavo volume of 886 
pages, in the styles and at the prices which follow, viz. : 
In Cloth $5.00 In Half Russia, extra gilt, $8.00 

In Library Leather 6-00 In Full Morocco, gilt edges, 10.00 

In Half Turkey Morocco 7.00 In Full Russia, gilt edges, 10.00 

This work is sold only by the special Subscription Agents appointed for 
its introduction. In the absence of such Agents orders sent to the publisher 
will be promptly attended to. Specimen pages together with the Analytical 
Index and Notices will be mailed upon application. 

E. STEIOER, 22 & 24 Frankfort St., NEW YORK. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 





021 366 886 9 




E. STEIGER, 

S2 & S4 Frankfort Street, 
NEW YORK. 



